History Lessons Coming up in New York

As the popularity of this American holiday increases worldwide, the ancient roots and meanings of Halloween have become more and more obscure. In this class we will use an anthropological perspective to explore the various cultural threads that have been woven together to make Halloween what it is today. This class will include activities, lecture...

This course is a historical approach to the mathematics of infinity, with a focus on conceptual and philosophical questions. We will begin with the ancient Greeks’ discovery of irrational numbers and discussions of Zeno’s paradoxes, then jump forward to the development of the “infinitesimal” calculus in the late 17th century (by Newton...

“Bog bodies”: the eerily well-preserved remains of hundreds of people – men, women, and children – found in the swamps and peaty wetlands of northern Europe. Many times police have been called to what appears to be a modern murder scene, only to discover that the body dates back to the Iron Age, over two thousand years ago. The...

The NCIDQ exam is the qualifying exam for certification of Interior Designers. The exam consists of 3 sections to be completed following the approval of eligible educational requirements. The three sections are: IDFX: Interior Design Fundamentals Exam - A 125 question multiple choice exam encompassing the topics of: building systems and construction,...

Naturalists are keen observers of the world around them and have played an integral role in the evolution of scientific thought. Now you can be one too! Learn how to identify plants and animals using a 10x hand lens, dichotomous keys, and field guides. We'll discuss ecological processes and how they are impacted by the urban environment. Significant...

Stephen Sondheim is an artist whose work remains unmatched in its daring to consistently bring an experimental, unconventional, modernist and personal sensibility to that most conservative of forms, the American Musical, all the while building from traditional forms, both popular and classical. We embark on our year-long lecture series on this iconic...

Gangsters, Immigrants and Labor! New York’s mean streets have long been gritty and compelling locations for filmmakers. See how New York– and New Yorkers– were depicted on film when the city was the epicenter of the film industry, and view portrayals of gangsters and immigrants which strongly influence filmmakers today. Film historian,...

This course will prepare you to take and pass the American History CLEP exam, which will result in credits given for this course. The History of the United States I: Early Colonization to 1877 exam covers material that is usually taught in the first semester of a two-semester course in United States history.

How do numbers relate to the world? What insights can we derive from data? How do we separate signal from noise? This course is an introduction to statistical thinking and its applications to data analysis at a level accessible to a broad audience with no prior statistical background. We’ll learn and make intuitive the fundamental methods...

Life is full of complicated ethical questions: Should doping be permitted in sports? What, if anything, do we owe to the incarcerated? Are reality TV shows ethical? Can we program robot to be moral beings? What does the future of reproduction hold, and will men be able to have babies? Topic: Public Health & Pop Culture Public health...

This lecture will explore perhaps the most powerful and moving political painting of the Western tradition: The Third of May 1808. Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon’s armies during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsular War. In it, he musters a new kind of artistic expression, and a monumental revolutionary statement that...

On this walking tour, we’ll discover the life of pirates and prostitutes living in the scrappy Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, long before New York was New York. Step into the wooden shoes of the early settlers and see what life was like being an employee rather than a colonist. Based on exciting new research taking place over the last...

Does history have a direction, a purpose, or an end goal? Can we deduce general historical patterns from studying the past? Is it naïve to hope and work for a better future? From the Enlightenment to the twenty-first century, liberal, Marxist, positivist, and post-structuralist thinkers have offered radically different responses to these fundamental...

Full Course Name: From Generation to Generation: Four Generations of Holocaust Survivors Speak Out Although the Holocaust ended in 1945, the remnants of the Nazi atrocities are still present in the lives of survivors and their descendants. Join bestselling author and second generation (2G) survivor, Emily Wanderer Cohen, as she joins a multi-generational...

Throughout history, revolutions and collective resistance to oppression have found inspiration and expression through poetry. Poets have played direct roles in revolutionary struggles, and their poems have expressed protest against harsh realities as well as dreams of liberation across a wide range of styles and genres. In this class we'll consider...